I'm an LA-based writer and management consultant. I was an adviser and editor for many years for the father of modern leadership studies, the late USC professor Warren Bennis. And over the past twenty years, I’ve been a chief storyteller for USC, during a time in which Bennis and other leaders helped it skyrocket in global reputation and productivity. I bring a different perspective to leadership--some sober perspective about the realities of being "in charge," along with advice on how to tell great stories that mobilize great communities. I've written for dozens of publications around the world, including the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor and Japan Times. I serve as a University Fellow at USC’s Center for Public Diplomacy and am a member of the Pacific Council for International Policy. My book Leadership Is Hell (Figueroa Press, 2014) is available on Amazon; all proceeds benefit programs that make college accessible to promising LA urban schoolchildren.

Ranking The 9 Toughest Leadership Roles

While spending a quarter-century dabbling across the worlds of education, business, media, politics, religion and nonprofits, it gradually became clear to me that leaders who flourish in one realm may fizzle or even fail spectacularly in another one.

So which roles require the greatest skill and impose the greatest burdens? Here’s one educated guess, along with some pros and cons for each gig. [You’ll notice that the top slot has changed since another recent assessment of mine.]

Now let’s acknowledge the one real pro: A generation ago CEOs made 25 times what the average worker made. Now it’s over 250 times. So no one really gives a damn what the cons are.

8. United States Congressperson

Pros: Even though Congressional approval rates hover around 15%, incumbents get reelected 90% of the time. So even a monumental sex scandal may not drive you from office. And generous donations from special interests give you a clear map for how to vote on even the most complicated issues.

Cons: Every so often you wake up at 4 a.m. with a clear sense that you’re the cause of the nation’s problems.

7. Editor for a Daily Newspaper

Pros: You’re at the cutting edge of change within the global communications revolution.

Little-appreciated fact: There are about 1,400 members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, thousands of other mayors leading small municipalities, and several celebritymayors.

Pros: Chance to ban large sodas and/or deport citizens who picked on you in grade school.

Cons:Unlike most politicians, you actually have to make sure that garbage gets collected, snow gets shoveled, and things get done. And worse yet, you often can’t fire the people who are getting in your way.

5. Pastor, Rabbi, Mullah or Other Holy Leader

Pros: You’re seen as a man or woman of God, and what you say gets taken seriously, at least momentarily.

Cons: “Being a pastor is like death by a thousand paper cuts,” says Rev. Dr. Ken Fong, senior pastor at Evergreen Baptist Church in Rosemead, California and a program director at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. “You’re scrutinized and criticized from top to bottom, stem to stern. You work for an invisible, perfect Boss, and you’re supposed to lead a ragtag gaggle of volunteers towards God’s coming future. It’s like herding cats, but harder.”

Adds Rob Jackson, interim pastor at Hilliard Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio: “I’ve managed people in a traditional office and also in a church—and one of the major differences between is most of the workers in a church are volunteers who will not do something just because it’s their job. Managers of volunteers must always lead by demonstrating a vision for our mission and how their work fits into it.”

Pros: You never see your spouse or kids. And it’s your chance to finally get that 24/7 attention you crave, usually from bitter, underpaid sports “journalists” and psychopathically unhappy callers to AM radio shows who blame you for 4,037 things outside your control.

3. Second-in-Command of Any Organization

Pros: As the company’s #2, you’re insulated from much of the searing heat that the top position faces. And many people flatter you by telling you (out of earshot of your boss) that you that you should be the real #1.

Cons: You’re less ready for the #1 job than you think. Even though you think you’re doing the true hard work while your insufferable boss basks in all the glory, you have no idea how much more complex, lonely and pressure-packed the #1 position is.

2. University President

Pros: People are pretty sure you’re super-smart.

Cons: People don’t like know-it-alls. And in addition to managing a huge and complex physical campus, you have to manage a thousand unmanageable constituencies—including picketing students, partying students, zealous alumni, Nobel laureates, hundreds or thousands of highly opinionated tenured professors that you can’t fire, and 10 to 15 separate sports franchises that would drive any NFL owner insane. And bear in mind that public university presidents have all the problems above, while additionally needing to wrestle with governors and state legislators and political groups.

Stay-at-home parents finish first in this ranking. Pipe down, this is harder than it looks. (Photo Source: Wikipedia)

1. Stay-At-Home Parent

Little known fact: While there are some 5 million stay-at-home mothers in the U.S., the number of stay-at-home fathers has tripled in recent years.

Pros:

Comfortable, stretchy sweat-pant uniforms. Showering optional.

Freedom from water-cooler gossip and office backstabbing.

Cons:

Condescending tone in the “Oh, staying at home is a very important job” statements that others make.

The knowledge that, if you do your job badly, you’ll be raising the next generation of psychopaths and US congresspersons.

While it’s been calculated that the value of your work is a whopping $100,000 a year, your overpaid CEO spouse flaunts his or her paycheck as a way of showing that he or she doesn’t plan to help around the house.

Even if you do your job right, the little ingrates move on and leave you with an empty nest.

Joanne Weidman, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Pasadena, puts the challenges more eloquently:

“The greatest leadership challenge for a parent today is to be countercultural … to be thoughtful, intentional and articulate about determining what on the children’s achievement hamster wheel is good for your family and drawing boundaries around what is not. And to remain faithful to this task can provide significant satisfaction and meaning for many years … Then, the children leave.”

Weidman adds:

“In my clinical work, it’s common to see clients, mostly women, whose identity is tied closely to the parental role and family leadership responsibility. This is further complicated when ambition and the ability to earn had been set aside and professional identity subsumed into family. It can be difficult to lead one’s own life after being other-directed for so many years … especially if lacking a professional resume to provide the foundation for starting over.”

Point well taken. And with that, stay-at-home parents move past university presidents in my latest assessment of the toughest leadership gigs imaginable.

[Please share your own insights and experiences with our Forbes.com community in the comments section. And hit "Follow" at the top of the page to receive notification of more career and management advice from Rob Asghar.]

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